


everything about you resonates happiness

by aestrales



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, me careening between intense angst and the absolute soppiest fluff: parkour!, there's definitely a better way of explaining that, trauma and manipulation warping self perception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:33:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29226288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aestrales/pseuds/aestrales
Summary: title from Bliss by Musebasically a character study of Willie's self-image.tw for implied dissociation
Relationships: Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 49





	everything about you resonates happiness

Willie considered himself a fundamentally selfish person.

He had given up his soul out of selfishness, out of the kind of hedonistic and impulsive decision making only truly selfish, vain people made, like the people at the Hollywood Ghost Club. They wanted to dance forever, to show off to crowds of gawking lifers.

He’d been selfish when, out of some misguided attempt to impress Alex, he’d brought him and his friends right into Caleb’s trap.

He’d definitely been selfish when he let Caleb take his soul.

“It’s a small price to pay, in the grand scheme of things. Think of it as an investment!” He had flourished his arm, and his charcoal grey cape had followed. His eyes had met Willie’s, serious and almost stern. He had placed his flourishing hand firmly on Willie’s shoulder, and Willie registered distantly how strange it felt to have somebody else touch him and not go straight through. He didn’t remember the last time that happened. “I know what it’s like to be lonely, William. You’ve been alone for two decades now, and ghosts need a tether. Time doesn’t move for us as it does for them,” here he gestured at the window of a cafe, where a blonde girl with heavily straightened hair and flared jeans was leaning on her arm, looking glum. “Not without something to cling to. Everyone who works for me gets time back on their side, gets to feel each day as it passes instead of a mass of years that bleed into one.”

And he was right. Willie could barely tell the years apart these days, let alone the days or hours. And he missed his family, missed his rough-around-the-edges friends from the skate park. His family moved, his friends got to live past the age of seventeen. The only pieces of evidence that he was ever alive, that he had ever existed, were the now-defunct house key that still hung around his neck, and the mural near the skate park.

He’d watched them put it up, cans of spray paint clattering on the floor. His name, the dates he’d been alive between. Some flourishes here and there, every last one of them pouring their heart and soul into the brick wall down the road from the actual park, facing away from the road as though to protect the privacy and sanctity of their memorial from prying citizens that might complain about ‘eyesores’. Willie had seen about half a dozen first kisses and a fair bit of underage drinking by that wall. Over decades, new graffiti adorned, but didn’t completely cover, his name. It was a gritty little back corner, where the only light source was the silver glint of old food wrappers, and it was Willie’s favourite place.

The Hollywood Ghost Club was the opposite of gritty, and its silver glints were all deliberate. Willie didn’t see Caleb’s careful eyes on him as he examined the empty club, marvelling at the sheer scale of it.

“Just you wait until it’s full.”

And Willie was adopted backstage, like a stray kitten brought in from the winter cold. He was cooed over by the girls as they bounced around in their feathers and their lipstick, and respected as Caleb’s little errand boy, the kid who’d made something useful out of taking a truck to the skull.

And the rest of the time, Willie skated the years away. It was as though, in giving away his soul, he’d been freed. He could feel the days as they passed again, not quite in the way he used to but close enough. He had somewhere to go when he felt lonely, where people knew who he was and where he _mattered _,__ even if only by proxy.

And then, Alex. He hadn’t missed a single second since he met Alex. In fact, even when he was alive time hadn’t felt quite this pronounced.

Nor had it felt this electric, charged with something magnetic, some force of the universe dragging him towards Alex. He wondered whether his heart was programmed to say that name, A-lex, A-lex with every thump. Ghosts weren’t supposed to have heartbeats. His was too faint to be noteworthy anyway- unless Alex was looking at him, with his soft, inviting eyes, in which case it seemed to rise in Willie’s chest and thrum through his whole body. He didn’t think too hard about it.

He couldn’t resist that pull, however hard he tried. He had to see that Alex was okay, had to figure out what, exactly to do. He couldn’t do anything, and he knew that. Caleb was too powerful. He’d driven them into the path of danger, and now he had to own up to it.

“We never should’ve met.”

And he means it, but he also means a thousand other things. _I’ve put you in danger. Just like I put myself in danger, remember, when I got myself mown down and bled out in the middle of the street. I’m not a safe person, and now look what I’ve done. I’ve taken you, the most perfect person I’ve ever met, right into the path of a metaphorical truck. I’m a menace, I’m careless, I think I might be in love with you and that’s why I can’t let you anywhere near me. If I could find a way to fix this, please believe that I would. You’ve set my world to rights, make time tick by properly again and made my heart beat again, and look how I repay you. I’m selfish, and I wanted to use you for my own selfish ends. I wanted you, and look what it’s done to us both._

And he looks Alex in the eyes for what he knows will be the last time, and his heart is beating too loud and too hard and he almost laughs at the thought that _it makes perfect sense that Alex is a drummer, clearly he has an affinity for rhythms._

And then Alex’s arms are around him, and he’s as close to alive as he remembers being in decades. And time moves all too quickly, because he could hold onto Alex for forever and he desperately wants to. He can hear Alex’s own heartbeat too.

He makes the first unselfish decision he’s made in a long time, and it comes all too late. He skates until he’s no longer on Sunset Boulevard, but outside the Hollywood Ghost Club. He abandons his skateboard- he can summon it whenever he wants- and appears outside the dressing room.

Nobody quite looks him in the eye, and Willie assumes word has gotten around. But he doesn’t realise the scale of it until Caleb’s locked the door on him.

“Well, I’ll just have to keep you on a tighter leash.” Caleb says nonchalantly. “I should have predicted this, to be honest, you always were a little too independent. But that’s what comes with a young death, and if I could have left you where you were, I would have done.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Willie, arms wrapped around himself, tried to keep his voice even. _That’s what comes with a young death. A young death._

“Because you’re too powerful. I thought you would have realised that by now, but maybe I gave you too much credit.” Caleb sighed. “You have more natural gifts than most ghosts. I’ve seen it happen when a ghost has a strong connection to the living, as with your little friends and their band. But I don’t know what caused it in you. I’ve taught you some of what I know, and no doubt I could teach you more. But you’ve proven to me exactly how well you’d handle that- you’ve shown exactly where your loyalties lie.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, I’m sure you don’t. In simple terms,” Caleb strode toward Willie, without a trace of hesitation, “I decided to keep my enemies close.”

Caleb’s hand met the right side of Willie’s head. Before he could move away, Caleb was gripping Willie’s left wrist, and the skin where he touched began to burn. Willie felt the crack against his skull, repeating his own death like a broken vinyl, he felt the stamp singe his wrist and he cried out in pain.

Nobody, even if they heard him, would have lifted a finger. Not against Caleb- there was no point.

Willie had been wandering the streets where he grew up for some hours. He knew that Caleb knew exactly where he was, could follow him, could punish him for any reason and at any time. He’d walked past his own mural eight times already. He had his house key in his fist, trying to convince himself of his own corporeality by digging the notches into his palm, but he could only feel it the way he might have imagined the sensation while watching it on a screen. It wasn’t happening in his own body- nothing seemed to be happening in his own body except the searing pain of a jolt originating in his head and resounding throughout his whole body.

And his heart beat. He could feel it, racketing around in his vacant chest, sluggish and faint and sickly, but there. Was that what Caleb had meant? Ghosts weren’t supposed to have heartbeats. So why did he? And why did Alex have a heartbeat so strong any stethoscope would have declared him completely alive?

Time was gone again- he blinked and it was morning. Stumbling blindly through the world, Willie moved in the direction of the studio where he knew the last remnants of Alex would be.

A voice- Julie’s, he surmised- was speaking in soothing tones, but the reply did not sound comforted.

“I’m worried about him. What if-”

“Worried about who?”

Willie’s voice sounded hoarse and distant, as though someone else was speaking the words with his voice. He used the last dregs of his sense of humour to smile at Alex, stepping down into the courtyard outside the studio.

“Willie!” Alex’s shout, elated and desperate was all the warning Willie got before he was swept up in Alex’s arms once again. He collapsed against Alex, hearing his heartbeat.

“He stamped me.” Willie said softly into Alex’s shoulder. All the fight was gone from his body, all hope of pretence lost. He felt Alex’s arms tighten around him even further.

The others had politely vacated the studio to try and think of a solution, leaving Alex hovering anxiously over Willie, who was gripping Alex’s hand to try and ground himself. In the time it had taken to establish that Julie had broken their stamps, they could now touch her, and she could see Willie, he had only had one jolt, and the edge had been taken off by the warmth of Alex’s hand against his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry. For everything.” Willie said, his voice still soft but not as pathetic and hoarse as it had been a moment ago. “And for coming back. I didn’t think you’d be here- I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

“Don’t apologise.” Alex’s hand gripped his even tighter. His voice lowered, gentle like he was talking to a wounded animal. “I’d do anything for you, Willie.”

That did it. Willie pulled himself up, feeling that if his strength was about to deplete, this was what he wanted to use the last of it for.

He gripped the front of Alex’s hoodie for stability and kissed him, chaste and soft. And then Alex kissed him back, supporting Willie’s weight- he was surprisingly strong, Willie registered distantly- and Willie felt the rest of the world disappear. He could get back to it later, he could face Caleb’s jolts and all the guilt he kept inside his chest and all the pain the world still had left to offer it the moment he was done kissing Alex, because this was a task worth focusing on. He didn’t think there was a single thing in the world that compared to it.

His heartbeat was still going, _A-lex, A-lex, A-lex,_ louder and louder with every beat, like it was signalling to Willie. _This is right. This is it. Alex_.

The oppressive singe-ing sensation lifted first, where the stamp had been burning under his skin. One last flickering jolt ran through his skull, like Caleb’s last-ditch attempt to prevent Willie from slipping through his fingers, before fading into obscurity. His heartbeat was unmistakable and sure, his existence beyond doubt. Alex’s forehead was pressed to his, watching with shuddering breaths as the stamp lifted from Willie’s wrist.

Willie sat up a little straighter, thinking that the feeling had faded, before gasping and collapsing against Alex once again.

“How did- what?” He stammered, feeling dizzy and disoriented but alive all at once. _His soul_. He could feel it, back in his body, heavier than he remembered it being. He kissed Alex again, swept up in the euphoric sensation of his soul settling back where it belonged, of feeling as _real_ and as alive as he had in decades. Perhaps as he had ever felt.

It was some weeks later, as the sun set and blurred the sky a brilliant orange, and Alex’s arms were wrapped across his chest, that Willie forgave himself. Only now that he had it could he make sense of what he’d wanted, what he’d looked for in dressing rooms and graffiti and housekeys. What he’d sought so desperately for so long.

He belonged in the studio- he was a part of their family, their movie nights and rehearsals and inside jokes. He belonged next to Flynn at their concerts, cheering as loud as he could and watching Alex’s every move, his hair falling in his face.

He belonged here, in Alex’s arms, where time moved the way it was supposed to and his heart beat the way it should, and he wasn’t lonely any more. And in return it all belonged to him, a trade of souls on an equal playing field, where instead of losing something and having to chase after it forever, he both had and was had, both belonged to and was belonged with.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on tumblr @kirkisms!!
> 
> leave a comment if you want, they really do fuel me and sometimes make me cry a lil


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